Clemkadidlefark:I want to know about the Altimeter, its Settings and Real Time adjustments

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I've read the pilot had the glide slope all wrong, thousands of feet too high on Initial Approach, had to correct, essentially coasting in and driving the air craft down to make up for real elevation, and then realized he'd over-compensated, glide path wrong. Not enough air speed, idling engines did not spool up quickly enough and wham. Turned a 777 into a tail dragger.

Well and truly makes me want to know why his elevation was off and too high at the beginning of descent.

Although it's way too early to even guess, I saw this and was reminded of a crash (many years back now) that occurred in the Alps after an icing incident; apparently the autopilot had been correcting for the slight but increasing effects of drag on the wings as ice accumulated, keeping the plane nominally fast and level enough until it was suddenly unable to compensate and then the alarms went off--and it was too late for the human pilots to correct before they hit the mountains. Now I'm curious as to whether something like this was involved, that the computer had been compensating for something the pilots were unaware of until they disengaged (like the would at landing) and found to their horror they had no time to fix something they needed another 10,000 feet to repair.

Gyrfalcon:It still makes me laugh that we've just had a major air accident where virtually everyone walked away and ONLY two dead--and people are already biatching about how the seats should be redesigned and the seatbelts weren't safe enough, like this wasn't some insane miracle where everything pretty much worked like it should have.

We are so coddled as a species.

Which is why we are the dominate species on the planet. We fix shiat when it's broken and try to make things better.

We don't simply go, "Ah well, only 10,000 died of the plague this year, that's not bad." and give up on creating vaccinations.

We are excellence orientated when it comes to surviving and thriving as a species. (We're not perfect by a long shot, but the effort is there.)

lack of warmth:I know it is legal to not upgrade the safety equipment in cars, but why not do it. A few years back, a guy heading home in his vintage T-bucket hot rod lost control on a curve just down the road from my house. No seat belt at all, because the car was considered pre-1930 even after the other work done on it, and of course the tree did more damage to him than it did to the car. The car barely shown any damage and was still drivable, whereas he died.

I have a family member who drives with their small dogs free in the car. They expect to be able to sit in your lap in the front seat. I loathe it. I hold on to the dog's collar for dear life in the hopes I don't get a dog through the head if we have an accident.

Gee. I wonder if fighter pilots and race car drivers wear seat belts, and if those designs are similar to an airplane lap belt, or for that matter a passenger car? Nope. They use a much better design. But it might cost $100 more a seat divided by the number of passengers to sit in that seat over the lifetime of the seat, to pay for that. I mean like 2 or 3 cents per passenger trip, maybe. Obviously, this would be prohibitive, as would be the extra 10 seconds for a passenger to figure out how to use the more complex buckle.

Yeah...stop suggesting multi-point seatbelts. All of these ideas have been tried be engineers that make these aircraft, and this was the decided "best" way to do it. There is, frankly, more at play than safety. People have a difficult enough time with just a lap belt on airplanes, but a three-point harness? Forget about it. 5-point even? Keep dreaming. In fact, I would argue that many more people would be killed because people aren't going to use a multi-point harness correctly. You must also factor in customer satisfaction. Sorry it has to come down to that as well, but in the end, an aircraft is a product and customers have to be happy. If you require that every person flying properly use a multi point harness (complete with neck brace), nobody is going to fly. It's a risk people take when they fly. And to be honest, the fact that only two people lost their lives in this accident is a major win in aircraft safety.

rear-facing seats:i've flown in planes facing front (most flights), back (southwest airlines flight had some spots where seats faced each other, and the c141 i flew in had rear facing seats installed), sideways (c130 jump seats), and laying down on a blanket (last leg of the c17 flight back to arkansas from germany consisted of a load of 8 or 10 of us airforce reservists and some equipment...so essentially a huge open c17 cargo area)

i'm perfectly fine with rear-facing airplane seats. i experienced no discomfort. takeoff is slightly weird, but i didn't feel like falling. on the jumpseats i did tend to lean into the person next to me, but of course we were all leaning

mahill10:Yeah...stop suggesting multi-point seatbelts. All of these ideas have been tried be engineers that make these aircraft, and this was the decided "best" way to do it. There is, frankly, more at play than safety. People have a difficult enough time with just a lap belt on airplanes, but a three-point harness? Forget about it. 5-point even? Keep dreaming. In fact, I would argue that many more people would be killed because people aren't going to use a multi-point harness correctly. You must also factor in customer satisfaction. Sorry it has to come down to that as well, but in the end, an aircraft is a product and customers have to be happy. If you require that every person flying properly use a multi point harness (complete with neck brace), nobody is going to fly. It's a risk people take when they fly. And to be honest, the fact that only two people lost their lives in this accident is a major win in aircraft safety.

Hmmm. I wonder if the 777 pilot and co-pilot have seat belts with a design similar to a military pilot's or a race car driver's. I'm sure they insist on whatever is best. Are passengers treated like valuable human beings, or cattle? Perhaps somewhere in between?

Mimic_Octopus:umm, these seat belts always look like they are recycled out of vintage cars that were forced to upgrade to shoulder strap belts. just swap these relics out for over the shoulder and lap or, since you are in a farking airplane, install 5 point harnesses like a pilot has. One more case of cheap farking quality so some corp can save a few bucks while risking lives. shiat !! two hundred billion is not enough this year !! we need to make 20 extra grand, cancel the seat belt upgrade again !

Inertial reel belts won't work reliably in an airplane, they have to use the old fashioned ones.

Buggar:I think the seats should face back AND all planes should have open cargo doors at the back of the plane during takeoff so all non properly stowed electronics will exit the plane. And it'd be biatchin to watch the ground drop away. And who the hell would argue with flight attendants about putting on their seatbelt and sitting down when they are busy fearing for their life?

And they would have to sweep the runway after every takeoff.

Clemkadidlefark:I've read the pilot had the glide slope all wrong, thousands of feet too high on Initial Approach, had to correct, essentially coasting in and driving the air craft down to make up for real elevation, and then realized he'd over-compensated, glide path wrong. Not enough air speed, idling engines did not spool up quickly enough and wham. Turned a 777 into a tail dragger.

Well and truly makes me want to know why his elevation was off and too high at the beginning of descent.

Something I ran into from a pilot who flies the big birds into that airport: The air is a bit strange on the approach, you normally end up having to lower power for a bit on the approach and then apply extra power later in order to stay on the glide slope.

That suggests a likely scenario here: The pilot was behind. He hit the freaky air but didn't pull power soon enough so he ended up above the glide slope. He pulled too much power trying to compensate and once he was past that point and actually needed more power he again didn't react fast enough. He got caught too low with his engines turning too slowly--he realized the problem and attempted a go-around but it was too late. Jet engines take time to respond to the throttle and he didn't have enough of it.

Jackson Herring:Manley said even among those who suffered mild spine trauma, he is struck by a pattern that shows how their upper bodies were flung forward and then backward over the lap belts that kept them in their seats and undoubtedly saved their lives.

what are you trying to do here submitter

To be honest, the lap belts haven't much to do with survivability in a plane crash. It is more the facing of the seat and the closeness of the seat in front of you.The safest seats in the plane?The Flight Attendant Jump Seat. Why? They face the rear of the plane. Doesn't look comfy, but in a crash it'd absorb the energy from the sudden stop. Second safest?Riding Coach. The seats are closer together, and most are cushioned in the back, providing for a soft spot when your head and body lunge forward. Third safest?First/Business Class. While comfy in-flight, these seats in the upright position provide little to nothing in a crash. You'll go further in your seat in a crash, which in turn leads to worse injuries.

Years back at a press conference regarding a fatal crash, a pesty reporter kept asking & re-asking the Trans. Board spokeman the exact cause of deaths in the disaster. The spokesman was a tired-looking old guy who'd obviously had a rough day in an intense setting. He told the jerk, "Look son, the plane stopped and the passengers didn't."

And unless they also require complete redesign of the seats to be more like passenger cars, where the belts can actually function properly (low across the hips), and effective attendants to see to it that the canned squirrels wear them correctly, if at all, said requirement may be worse than useless.

Also, a Canadian study back in the late '80s or early '90s concluded that rear-facing seats in school busses would reduce chances of injury, but again, without assurance of behaviour similar to that in the tests (HAH!) the improvement would be minimal.